Home 2000s 2009 Movies Cooking with Stella

Cooking with Stella

76

103 minutes – Comedy
Release date: March 26, 2010
Canadian Distributor: Mongrel Media

Stella Elizabeth Matthews (Seema Biswas) has been a cook in the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi for 30 years. She is brilliant as a cook, and brilliant at creatively padding her salary – with a few pilfered items, some minor overcharging, and a special phone-order duty free business. A newly posted Canadian diplomat (Lisa Ray) and her husband Michael (Don McKellar) arrive with their baby (Alexiane Perreault). After an initial jolt when Stella learns that Michael will be staying home as “diplomatic housewife” while Maya goes off to work, everything goes swimmingly for Stella. Michael was a chef in Ottawa and he is longing to learn authentic Indian cooking. Stella agrees to be his “cooking guru”. But Stella’s cozy domestic set-up implodes when Tannu (Shriya Saran), an honest nanny, joins the household, and threatens to expose Stella’s deceptions. Eventually Stella wins Tannu’s full cooperation (and then some!). This unlikely partnership embarks on a much grander, riskier scam, which seems to bring disaster. An unexpected kind of justice is found, but not until the guru-student relationship between Stella and Michael has been sorely tested. Michael has learned many important lessons from his teacher …including glorious traditional South Indian cooking. And Stella? Well…. let’s just say dreams sometimes come true in unexpected ways.

Watch Dilip Mehta talk about The Making of Cooking With Stella.
Watch Don McKellar talk about his work in Cooking With Stella.

Cooking With Stella

Crew:

Producer:

David Hamilton

Executive Producer:

Deepa Mehta
Ravi Chopra
Sanjay Bhutiani
David Hamilton

Director:

Dilip Mehta

Screenwriter:

Deepa Mehta
Dilip Mehta

Cinematographer:

Giles Nuttgens

Editor:

Gareth C. Scales

Composer:

Mychael Danna
Amritha Fernandes Bakshi

Cast: Roles:

Seema Biswas
Don McKellar
Lisa Ray
Shriya Saran
Vansh Bhardwaj
Alexiane Perreault
Maury Chaykin
Kanhaiya Lal Kaithwas
Annie Desjardins
Mulchand Dedhia
Sue Macartney
Daulat Ram Vaid
Jaspal Sharma
Simtia Bharti
Sushil Parwana
Terry Banting
Praveen Kocher
Naresh Gosain
Sohaila Kapoor
Tilak Raj
Umesh Srivastava
Deana Culp
Hitender Kumar
Mahesh Gahlot
Ruth Norfolk
Nadeem Khan
Bharat Vig
Hitender Kumar
Rasika Anil Agashe
Laxmi Rawel
Naresh Bhartiya
Mr. G.S. Bedi
Anurag Arora
Ena Vohra
Sandhyi Bhatia
Arun Sode
Fatima
Biplob Borekakoh
Anil D’Mello
Owais Ali Harji
Ramesh Mokwana
Susheel Sharma
Sarah R. Niazi
Saurabh Kaushik
Veer Bhushan
Sachin Kathuria

Stella Elizabeth Matthews
Michael Laffont
Maya Chopra
Tannu
Anthony
Zara
Canadian High Comissioner Durand
Dhobi
Sandy
Vegetable Seller
Fiona
Inspector Dixit
Sub-Inspector
Defence Attorney
Judge
Security Officer
Butcher
Chicken Wallah
Aunty Kamla
Waiter
Priest
American Embassy Official
Immigration Officer
Lecherous Old Man
Dorothy Durand
Buddy #1
Buddy #2
Buddy #3
Cook #1
Cook #2
Cook #3
Shopkeeper
Constable in Market
Helpful Woman
Reliable Looking woman
Gardener
Older Woman in park
Man in Market
Police Constable
Police Constable
Police Constable
Reporter # 1
Reporter # 2
Reporter # 3
Reporter # 4
Reporter # 5